Work Text:
You lived
two decades
with nothing but your spine
holding you up.
The way light does not care
if shadows follow
you do not have to be wanted
to prove you are real.(Never been kissed by Natalie Wee)
ˏˋ°•*⁀➷
Chishiya was sick.
Statistically speaking, this really shouldn't surprise him. He worked at a children's hospital where small hands carried every conceivable pathogen, where parents brought their feverish offspring into waiting rooms like offerings to some viral god. Exposure was inevitable. His immune system, usually efficient as clockwork, had apparently decided to take a vacation without his approval in the first place.
The beeping sound from the thermometer pulled him out of his trance, and Chishiya squinted his eyes when the result read 38.7°C, which meant that his fever had gotten worse over time.
Fantastic.
He exhaled slowly through his nose, agitated at how breathing alone was enough to make his head hurt. The world tilted slightly as he set the thermometer down and pressed the heel of his hand against his eyes. He had been trying to ignore it all morning — the chills, the dull ache running behind his ribs, the fact that even the coffee tasted wrong — but the numbers didn't lie.
He was sick, and to make the matter worse, he was alone.
Well, technically not alone alone, because unlike two years ago, his apartment had acquired a second toothbrush by the sink and an entire gaming setup presented proudly in the living room.
Arisu was in Osaka for a gaming conference, presenting some new system he had built with his team. He had been so excited about it that Chishiya hadn’t said a word about feeling unwell when they spoke last night. It had been late, and his partner had been talking about design updates and networking dinners in that rambling, unfiltered way that usually made him smile. Telling the man he loved about his fever would have been… inconvenient. Pointless, even.
Besides, it wasn't like he was dying. He had survived much worse before — the death games, two bullets to his body, and waking up again in the real world with his conscience haunting every place he went. A fever wasn't enough to take him down.
Except that it was, in fact, more than capable of doing exactly that, because Chishiya found himself on the bathroom floor by mid-afternoon, cheek pressed against cool tile after misjudging the distance between the toilet and his own coordination. The nausea had hit like a freight train, and now he was simply... existing with the fever coursing through his veins.
Somewhere in the distance, his phone was buzzing in rapid succession, but he decided against moving entirely. The tile was cool, and moving meant acknowledging that his body had betrayed him, which felt like admitting defeat.
The buzzing stopped, then started back up again.
With a groan that sounded pathetic even to his own ears, Chishiya dragged himself into a sitting position and reached for his phone on the counter. The screen was too bright. Everything was too bright.
Ryō: Earth to my favourite person
Ryō: hru?
Ryō: is the hospital short-staffed again?
Ryō: dont forget to take care of yourself, yeah?
Chishiya stared at the messages, vision swimming slightly. He should lie like he always did when he wanted to keep his pain to himself, should send something dismissive to dismiss his partner's concern, or simply said Fine, go back to your networking event.
Instead, his fingers moved with the sluggish honesty of someone whose executive function had been thoroughly fried by fever.
Shun: On the floor right now. Feels very comfy.
The response was immediate.
Ryō: FLOOR???
Ryō: shun what floor
Ryō: are you sick on the bathroom floor right now????
Shun: Bathroom. Gravity won. I'm just a bit tired, that's all.
Three dots appeared, disappeared, then appeared again.
Ryō: JUST tired!?
Ryō: why didnt you tell me you were sick??
Ryō: actually dont even answer that, im catching the next flight home
Shun: Don't be ridiculous. You have the conference.
Ryō: i have a sick boyfriend on the bathroom floor, conference can survive without me
Ryō: ticket is already booked
Ryō: dont you dare try to get up and work from home
Ryō: i will confiscate your laptop if you even think about it
… He actually had thought about that, but there was no way he would admit such incriminating thing to Arisu — especially not when his partner was already worried about him.
Shun: I won't. Promise.
Ryō: thats good, now please go to bed
Ryō: im serious
Shun: The floor is fine.
Ryō: CHISHIYA SHUNTARŌ.
Ryō: bed. now.
Ryō: please dont make me worry more than i already am
Chishiya stared at his phone screen, at his full name spelled out in katakana like some kind of parental reprimand. It would have been funny if his head wasn't splitting open and his body wasn't convinced it was hosting a small sun.
Shun: You're bossy when you're worried.
Ryō: and youre stubborn when youre sick
Ryō: bed. please.
Ryō: for me?
That was playing dirty. Arisu knew exactly what he was doing, weaponizing his genuine concern in a way that made it impossible to refuse without feeling like an asshole.
Shun: Fine. Going now.
Ryō: thank you
Ryō: drink water too
Ryō: i love you
Shun: Love you too. Don't miss your flight worrying about me.
Ryō: too late already worrying
Ryō: see you soon
Chishiya set the phone down and stared at it for a long moment, something warm and uncomfortable settling in his chest that had nothing to do with the fever. For twenty-something years before the Borderland, he had been self-sufficient on his own. His spine had been the only thing holding him up, and he had preferred it that way — wanting nothing, needing no one, existing in the clean simplicity of his life.
Then he had died and come back from his near-death experience, and somehow in the aftermath, Arisu had slipped past every defence he had around him before, first as a friend with benefits to keep his bed warm and less lonely at night, then as something more permanent, as someone who texted him reminders to eat lunch and bought way too many houseplants and left sticky notes on the bathroom mirror that said things like “you're doing great” and “remember to smile at your patients today.”
It was deeply inconvenient being this cared for and mattering so much to someone else that wasn't himself. He was supposed to hate it, to quickly get away from that mess as soon as possible.
But he didn't. He couldn't, really, not when he was so tired and worn down from life.
Getting back to bed felt like climbing the whole Everest in its own, but through sheer spite — and the knowledge that if he passed out in the hallway, Arisu would never let him live it down — he managed it. The bed was unmade from this morning, sheets all messy from where he had kicked them off during a particularly unpleasant dream, yet he collapsed into them anyway, curling on his side and dragging the blanket over his shoulders. The shivers started almost immediately, his body unable to decide if it was burning up or freezing to death.
Eventually, sleep came to him in fragments, feverish and strange.
*ੈ✩‧₊˚
The hospital corridor was cold and sterile from where he looked at it, all white with the fluorescent lights flicking above him. His hands were covered in blood — not his own, never his own — and somewhere in the distance, a heart monitor was flatlining.
As usual, another soul had left this world, but he couldn't find it in him to cry anymore. Two decades of learning how to feel nothing tended to do that to people, after all.
“Chishiya.”
He turned. Arisu was at the end of the hallway, standing too far away for his comfort. The corridor stretched between them like taffy.
“You don't have to do this alone,” the brunette said, but his voice was all wrong, distorted like it was travelling through water.
“I've always done it alone,” Chishiya heard himself say. “It's easier that way.”
“Easier for who?”
The blood on his hands was spreading, crawling up his arms like vines. The heart monitor kept screaming bloody murder in his ears. He tried to move toward Arisu, but his legs wouldn't cooperate, and suddenly he was falling—
“—un? Shun, baby, wake up.”
Chishiya's eyes snapped open then, and for a disoriented second, he didn't recognize where he was, not until his gaze landed on Arisu sitting beside him, brown hair dishevelled and concern etched deep across his face.
“Hey,” the younger man said softly, brushing damp hair back from his forehead. “It's just me. You're okay.”
Something in his chest cracked open at those comforting words, and before he could stop himself or really think better of it, he lurched forward and wrapped his arms around his partner's waist, pressing his face against that familiar warmth. His whole body was trembling, and the brunette went very still at his action, but it didn't take long for the man to accept him openly and hold him close while patting his head with infinite gentleness.
“I've got you,” Arisu murmured. “I won't let the nightmares take you away, promise.”
Chishiya didn't say anything to those words. Instead, he just clung on, breathing in the familiar scent of the brunette's clothes — laundry detergent and something uniquely him — and allowing himself to be held in return. His fever-addled brain was still half-caught in the dream, and he had spent twenty-something years of his life being alone, but here, now, with Arisu comforting him, he couldn't push himself further anymore.
“Sorry,” he rasped, nuzzling deeper into the warmth. “That was—”
“Don't.” The brunette's hand moved from his hair to his back, rubbing slow circles. “Don't apologize for needing me. That's literally what I'm here for.”
“Your conference—”
“Can kiss my ass,” Arisu said cheerfully, and despite everything, Chishiya huffed out something that might have been a laugh if his throat didn't feel like sandpaper right now. “There will be opportunities for me to attend in the future, but I only have you as the one and only person I love.”
That was objectively ridiculous. His partner had built his entire career around those networking events, had spent weeks preparing his presentation, and yet here he was, sitting on their bed at 7 PM when he should have been giving a keynote speech in Osaka instead of rushing back home.
“You're an idiot,” Chishiya mumbled against his chest.
“Yeah, well, you're stuck with this idiot anyway.” Arisu's voice was warm with amusement. “Now, when's the last time you ate something that wasn't coffee and spite?”
To that question, he squinted his eyes and tried his best to recall what had happened since this morning. Breakfast had been... had there been breakfast at all? He couldn't remember whether or not he had eaten anything, but he wasn't hungry right now and—
“Your silence is very telling,” his partner sighed. “Okay, new plan. I'm going to go make you something that won't immediately come back up, and you're going to stay right here and not try to prove anything to anyone. Deal?”
“I don't need—”
“Shun.” Arisu pulled back just enough to look at him, and his expression was so unbearably fond that Chishiya had to look away. “I know you are strong and can totally handle yourself, but you don't have to anymore, okay? Let me take care of you just this once.”
Just this once was a lie, and they both knew it. This was what they did now — took turns being the strong one, the one who remembered to buy groceries and pay bills and hold the other together when the nightmares got too loud. It had been terrifying at first, that mutual dependence. Chishiya had spent so long being self-sufficient that needing someone else felt like admitting weakness.
But Arisu had never treated him like he was weak or incapable of caring for himself, had never made him feel like less for occasionally crumbling under the weight of everything he carried.
“Fine,” Chishiya said eventually, and it felt like surrendering, like losing and winning something he hadn't known he had been fighting for. “But if you make me eat anything with ginger in it, I'm ending this relationship.”
“Your threat would be more intimidating if you weren't currently using me as a teddy bear,” The brunette pointed out, but he was smiling, soft and pleased, as he carefully disentangled himself. “I'm thinking plain rice and maybe some miso soup. Very gentle on the stomach.”
“Show-off.”
“I literally Googled ‘what to feed sick boyfriend’ on the train ride home, but sure, I'll take the credit.” Arisu nuzzled against his forehead — a gesture so casual and affectionate that it made something ache in his chest. “Your fever is still pretty high. Did you take anything for it before I got back here?”
“No.”
“How stubborn.” But there was nothing in that gentle scolding tone aside from exasperated fondness. “Medicine after food, then. And water. Lots of water. You look like you're about three minutes away from mummification.”
“You have such a way with words. Truly, your romantic poetry astounds me.”
“My romantic poetry is the reason you agreed to date me in the first place,” Arisu shot back, already heading toward the door. “You told me, and I quote, ‘At least you're entertaining when you're trying to be charming.’”
“That doesn't sound like me at all.”
“It was literally our third time hooking up and you said it right after I tried to serenade you with that stupid song from—”
“We are not talking about the serenade incident,” Chishiya interjected quickly, feeling his face heat up in a way that had nothing to do with the fever. “That's classified information.”
“Oh, now it's classified? Because I seem to remember you—”
“Arisu Ryōhei, if you finish that sentence, I'm going to change the locks.”
Arisu's laugh echoed down the hallway, bright and unrepentant, and despite himself, despite the fever and the lingering unease from the nightmare, Chishiya felt something in him settle. This was real. His partner was here, teasing him about embarrassing hookup memories and threatening to make him eat soup, and he was allowed to have this.
He didn't have to be wanted to prove he was real, but god, it was nice to be wanted anyway.
*ੈ✩‧₊˚
The apartment settled into comfortable silence after that, broken only by the sounds of Arisu moving around the kitchen — the soft hiss of rice cooking, the clink of bowls, the familiar rhythm of someone who had learned his way around this space. Chishiya closed his eyes and let himself drift, not quite sleeping but not fully awake either, suspended in that strange fever-state where time moved like honey.
When the brunette returned to their shared bedroom, he was carrying a tray with steam rising from two bowls. He set it carefully on the nightstand and helped him sit up, propping pillows behind his back to ensure that he could be as comfortable as possible.
“Okay, I know I said plain rice, but I added a tiny bit of salt because you need the electrolytes, and before you lecture me about sodium intake, I'm a grown man who can use Google, thank you very much.” Arisu handed him the bowl, then immediately reached over to adjust his grip when his hands shook slightly. “There we go. Small bites, yeah?”
“I'm not an infant.”
“No, you're a stubborn genius with a 38-something fever who thinks he can logic his way out of basic human needs.” The younger man settled beside him with his own bowl — plain rice as well, Chishiya noted, because of course his partner wouldn't eat something different when he was trying to make sick food seem appealing. “Eat. It'll get cold soon, and I know you hate cold food. Humour me, yeah?”
His normal response to that question would be to fight back against it, but against all odds, he reluctantly took his first bite. The rice was perfectly cooked, warm and bland and exactly what his rebelling stomach could handle. He took another bite, then another, while Arisu watched him with barely concealed satisfaction.
“You're staring,” Chishiya said after a moment, not looking up from his bowl.
“I'm supervising,” Arisu corrected, taking a bite of his own rice. “There's a difference. Supervision is medical. Staring is romantic.”
“That makes absolutely no sense.”
“Neither does you working yourself into a 39-degree fever and not telling me, but here we are.” His partner's tone was light, though the concern was still there. “I'm not mad with you, in case you're wondering.”
“I wasn't.” He took another small bite. The rice was settling surprisingly well. “But for the record, I didn't work myself into anything. Children are walking petri dishes. It's just occupational hazard at this point.”
“Mm-hmm, and how about the fact that you mentioned being short-staffed three times last week?”
Chishiya had no good answer to that.
Arisu sighed, setting his bowl aside and reaching for the water bottle he had brought in. “Here. You need to stay hydrated, and I know you've been terrible about that all day.”
“You know nothing of the sort.”
“Shun. Baby. Love of my life. Your lips are literally cracked.”
Alright, fine, he definitely walked right into that one.
Chishiya accepted the water bottle with as much dignity as he could muster while propped up by approximately seven pillows and wearing a shirt that said I PAUSED MY GAME TO BE HERE (Arisu's, obviously — he had grabbed it from the laundry without thinking this morning). He drank slowly, feeling the cool water soothe his raw throat.
“Better?” His partner asked, thumb rubbing small circles against his knee through the blanket.
“Marginally.”
Arisu gave him a small smile, warm and unbearably patient. “I'll take it. Now finish your rice, then medicine, then sleep. Doctor's orders.”
“You're not a doctor.”
“No, but I'm dating one, which means I've absorbed medical knowledge through osmosis. It's very scientific.”
Chishiya rolled his eyes but found himself smiling anyway. It felt nice like this — being taken care of, staying close to the person he loved, having the reminder that he was not alone anymore and he would always matter to someone else.
For the first time that day, the ache in his body eased just a little.
He could work with that.